Google News is a complimentary news service that is provided by and operated by the search engine. Google selects news stories from thousands of news-based websites and provides results in their results. For businesses that have their news articles listed on Google News, it can be a fantastic tool. In this article, you will learn the steps that need to be taken to get listed on Google News.
Before we explain how to get listed on Google News, let’s explain what Google News is.
The News tool provided by Google is a computer-generated search engine vertical that gathers headlines and news stories from more than 50,000 news sources around the world. The search engine then displays the stories they have amassed based on the interests and preferences of each person who uses the tool, or via search filtering. Google News is easy to access. Simply visit https://news.google.com/, or you can select the “News” tab located underneath the main search bar on the search engine’s homepage.
Google News Features
The Google News tool offers a variety of features. Some of the most pertinent features that are worthwhile to note include:
- The functionality of the search bar
- The supporting filters, which includes the regions news stories are being reported from and the type of news that is being shared
- The side navigation
- Updated weather conditions via a weather app
- A preference based and location based widget, which displays local news that is based on the preferences or location the user inputs
- Top picks from editors
- Top stories, either from a specific region or around the globe
- Stories that are suggested for individual users
- Industry-based news
Why You Would Want to be Listed on Google News
In the simplest terms, you would want to be listed on Google News because doing so can increase the visibility of your website, improve brand awareness, expand your reach, and boost traffic to your site; all of which could ultimately help to increase your sales. In other words, being listed on Google News can help to boost the overall success of your business.
Getting Listed on Google News
Just like all of the search results that Google offers, there are specific guidelines and best practices that must be adhered to in order to not only get listed on Google News, but to get a high ranking. Below, you will find more detailed information about these guidelines so that you can get listed.
- General guidelines
- Great content. It goes without saying but it is worth mentioning that your content has to meet Google’s requirements. That is, it has to be timely, relevant, and offer interest for the audience that uses Google News. Types of content that won’t meet this guideline include: job listings, tips and advice and content that only offers information, such as the weather.
- Original and readable. The content also has to be accurate and completely original. In other words, you can’t copy someone else’s idea, and you can’t make claims that aren’t backed by sources. Moreover, the content has to be written well and it can’t contain a lot of distractions, such as videos and advertisements.
- Expertise and trustworthy. Your content should include expertise and ideas that are backed by leaders in your industry. The opinion should be clear, founded on experience within a particular industry, and supported by documentation.
- Technical guidelines
- All URLs and anchor text for links must describe the content, be unique, and be permanent.
- The content must be provided only in HTML format. JavaScript, PDFs and other similar types of content cannot be crawled or displayed. Usually, multimedia content won’t be displayed, with the exception of YouTube.
- The domain that the content is hosted on must be accessible to search engine bots.
In short, if you want to get your content listed on Google News, you want to make sure that is not only adheres to guidelines, but that it goes above and beyond them. Always keep in mind that Google is all about quality and providing the most relevant, timely and useful information to its users.
